The Sopranos Quick Links

More than a decade after 'The Sopranos' ended its eight year HBO run, creator David Chase announces that he plans to revive it with a big screen prequel - the script for which he has already written. It's to be set in the 60s, around the time of the Newark race riots.

David Chase at the opening night of 'The Library'

Chase has been working on the screenplay for the movie - which currently has a working title of 'The Many Saints of Newark' - with Lawrence Konner, and it seems fans can expect some familiar faces to appear in the project. Except, of course, the late lead actor James Gandolfini who passed away in 2013.

David Chase spoke about 'The Sopranos'' famously cryptic ending in a new interview.

It’s arguably the most famous ending to a popular TV series ever, but nobody seems to have clue as to what the final sequence of ‘The Sopranos’ actually meant. However, we might have just been given a big piece of the puzzle by the show’s director David Chase.

In a new interview with Directors Guild of America Quarterly, Chase gave an overview of the very last few minutes of the final season, which notoriously finishes with a cut to black after a series of seemingly disconnected shots of the show’s characters converging on a café, to the soundtrack of ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’.

James Gandolfini was best known for his performances as Tony Soprano, though his career on stage should not be forgotten.

Broadway will dim its lights on Wednesday (June 26, 2013) in tribute to actor James Gandolfini, the Tony award nominee who died in Italy last week aged 51. The Broadway League announced that theatre marquees will go dark for one minute at 8pm, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Gandolfini was best known for playing New Jersey mobster Tony Soprano on HBO's The Sopranos - considered the greatest television drama of all time - though he also excelled on the stage. In 2009, the actor earned a best actor Tony Award nod for his role in Yasmina Reza's comedy God of Carnage, which he produced two years later at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre. Previously, Gandolfini had appeared in A Streetcar Named Desire (1992) opposite Jessica Lange and a youthful Alec Baldwin.

"Whether on screen or on a Broadway stage, [Gandolfini] made every role believable and seemingly effortless," Charlotte St. Martin, the Broadway League's executive director, said in a statement.

If you've watched all the shows on this list, then you know your onions

The greatest TV show of all time has another prestigious accolade to boast of, as The Writers Guild of America considers it the best written show of all time.

It tops a list that contains the likes of Mad Men, The Wire, Breaking Bad and older hits like The Twilight Zone, M.A.S.H and All In The Family. Airing from 1999 to 2007, The Sopranos redefined the genre of drama, placing viewers in a world of crime and extortion, while simultaneously exploring the intricacies of family life and the human condition. James Gandolfini was lauded for his extraordinary turn as Tony Soprano, and has only sporadically acted since his mammoth 6-season role as the New Jersey crime lynchpin. On Metacritic, The Sopranos rarely got an overall season rating, apart from the last, which managed a whopping 96%. It’s a good list for Mad Men too, which is the highest ranked show that is currently on the air. The AMC show has been increasingly popular over the years, and is currently in its fifth season.

Some controversies, though; The Wire – considered, like The Sopranos, to be one of the best – only just made the top 10, while The Simpsons, which has managed an unprecedented 25 seasons, didn’t. Louis C.K’s Louie, which challenges the conventions of traditional writing, is way down at #99; a surprise considering the critics have called it one of the best comedies of its generation. And of course, there were a few notable exceptions too, with more modern series taking up the majority of the list.

The HBO series beat off competition from the likes of The Simpson, The Wire and Lost.

The Sopranos. In a recent poll compiled by the Writer's Guild of America, the HBO series The Sopranos came out on top to be named the most well-written television show of all-time. The guild announced it's 101 Best Written TV Series on Sunday (June 2), mixing classic television with modern masterpieces.

The list commemorated both the shows and their writers, with Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David's Seinfeld coming second and The Twilight Zone third, with season one writers Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, Robert Presnell, Jr. and Rod Serling celebrated by the WGA. Sitcoms All in the Family and M*A*S*H finished off the top five.

Overall, there were seventeen titles included in the list that are still on air now, with The Simpson (11), MadMen (7), BreakingBad (13) and South Park (64) all included. With such a high percentage of modern shows on the list, it might not come as much of a surprise to know that shows from the past twenty years made up the majority of the list, with Game of Thrones and Louie the most recent shows on the list and Your Show of Shows (1950) the oldest. It seems that the golden age of television wasn't the 1950's after all then, but instead the last decade (with the emergence of cable television) when TV began to realise it's potential.

The Sopranos unsurprisingly topped the list of the 101 best written television shows.

Last night (2nd June), the Writers Guild of America (the WGA) unveiled its list of the 101 best written television shows in history voted for by members, who are split into east (WGAE) and western (WGAW) guilds in an online ballot.

Following the WGA's 2005 '101 Best Screenplays', the new list saw New Jersey mobster drama The Sopranos (created by David Chase) top the TV Guide Magazine-sponsored list. After debuting in 1999, the show ran for six seasons and 86 episodes before ending in 2007. The show, starring James Gandolfini as lead-character Anthony "Tony" Soprano, has received glowing critical acclaim over the years with New Yorker editor, David Remnick proclaiming the show to be "the richest achievement in the history of television."

Indeed, this is not the first time the highly lauded series has topped a 'best of' chart, with previous rankings including TV Guide's 'Top 50 TV Shows of All Time', and 'Channel 4's Greatest Television Series of All Time.'

The Sopranos and Sopranos - Joe Gannascoli from the Sopranos and club owner and fashion designer Gerry Kelly Miami, Florida - Dyna-Pep VIP launch party at the FIFTH night club in South Beach Saturday 11th October 2008

British actors Julie Christie and Daniel Day-Lewis have won the top acting prizes at the Screen Actors' Guild (SAG) awards.

While Christie took the best actress gong for her acclaimed portrayal of a woman facing dementia in Sarah Polley's Away From Her, Day-Lewis was rewarded for his stunning role as an amoral oil prospector in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood.

Though the awards season has been jeopardised by the ongoing industrial action by the Writers' Guild of America (WGA), the SAG awards were held without a hitch after an interim agreement was signed between the two unions, allowing acting talent to attend the ceremony without having to cross picket lines.

Christie - who is nominated for the best actress Academy award for her part in Away From Her - paid tribute to the SAG, adding to The Associated Press: "It's lovely to receive an award from your own union, especially at a time when we're being so forcefully reminded how important unions are."

And Day-Lewis dedicated his award to the late Heath Ledger, who was tragically found dead in his New York apartment last week.

"In Brokeback Mountain he was unique, he was perfect," Day-Lewis said while accepting his trophy.

"That scene in the trailer at the end of the film is as moving as anything I think I've ever seen."

The 50-year-old added backstage that he had never met Ledger but had been profoundly affected by the actor's death.

"I thought he was beautiful. I just had a very strong feeling I would have liked him very much as a man," he said. "I admired him very much. I'm absolutely certain he would have done many wonderful things in his life."

Javier Bardem took the best supporting actor prize for his role as psychotic killer Anton Chigurh in the Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men, which also won the award for outstanding cast in a motion picture.